LOGLINE
When recovering addict Jimmy Bishop finds his sober living facility teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, he is forced to take in his wealthy alcoholic mother as a client. Her arrival solves his immediate financial crisis but also unleashes every other problem he has struggled his whole life to contain...
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT - RICK ROSENTHAL
I started directing professionally in 1981. That might sound like a long time ago, but you know what? Even though I have a little bit of experience under my belt, I still get the butterflies going to work! Because every project is a new adventure and every adventure has its own learning curve.
What do I like about directing? That it has so many moving parts. And that there’s a craft to working with actors, creating key images and bringing people together to tell a story. Directing is not a solo endeavor – it takes a lot of teamwork for a project to be successful. And that’s also part of the director’s craft, too - part quarterback, part psychologist, part camp counselor, part tour guide and part expedition leader.
Directing requires enthusiasm.
Many years ago, when I was studying with Milton Katselas, he asked me if I knew the etymology of the word “enthusiasm?” I knew he was Greek, so I said, “I‘m sure it’s Greek” while simultaneously he said, “It’s Greek, you know.”
“Ok,” I said, “lay it on me.”
“’En” which means ‘from’ he said “and ‘theos’ which means ‘god’. So I translate ‘enthusiasm’ to be ‘a gift from the gods.’”
That was over thirty years ago. I can’t say I’ve always been able to walk that talk, but I have certainly tried.
In fact, I try to be at my best when things are at their worst – which it seems is just around the corner on almost any production.
But early on in my career, I was lucky to have a few great collaborators – the gifted cameramen Bruce Surtees and Donny Thorin, the stellar editors Tony Gibbs and Anne Goursaud and the incredibly supportive producers Bob Solo and Doug Chapin. I learned an incredible amount from them – and so many others - and I’m grateful they were willing to teach me so much.
After spending the last fifteen years heavily involved with indie film while still working in television, a couple of years ago, I felt a real shift in creative opportunities with the rise of the streaming services and the way stories could be told. Given the shifting paradigm, I thought, “what if we could take the way we produce and shoot indie films and make a spec pilot instead?”
So last spring that’s exactly what we did.
And that’s how HALFWAY THERE happened. Whitewater producer and compatriot Nick Morton wrote the script and then we got a group of friends and colleagues together – some actors I had worked with twenty and thirty years ago and some actors I had just met, a cameraman related by blood, a first AD from my TV days who came out of retirement, a producer friend of fifteen years, an editor from the last show I worked on, and a host of other people I had worked with before – and we made a spec pilot – just the way you would put together an indie film.
HALFWAY THERE is about a recovering addict (played by Matthew Lillard) who, when he finds the sober living facility he’s been running teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, is forced to take in his wealthy alcoholic mother (played by Blythe Danner) as a client. Her arrival solves his immediate financial crisis, but it also unleashes every other problem he has struggled his whole life to contain.
Why make a pilot about dysfunctional families?
1. Is there any other kind?
2. You can’t escape your family. You can try to change your identity, move away, or – like these characters - crawl inside a bottle to hide... But, at some point they still find you-- probably because you brought them with you in the first place. Can anyone ever really outgrow their epigenetics? That’s the journey to true adulthood - where the influence of your parents should no longer hold sway over the key decisions you make, but it’s a constantly moving destination that HALFWAY THERE tries to chart with comedy, drama, emotion and...leaky pipes. (Ok, now doesn’t that make you a little curious?)
Esai Morales, Sarah Shahi, Nishi Munshi, Paige Hurd and Matt O’Leary also star along with some other really talented actors
We started our adventure last spring and now, here it is – less than a year later – and we’re excited to screen HALFWAY THERE.
Hope to see you at our premiere.